GOP wondering where their women went

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, February 28, 1999

Battered by the November elections, which saw only 18 percent of Republican women at the polls, the state GOP spent much of its weekend convention trying to figure out where all the women had gone.

The most prominent woman in national GOP politics - Elizabeth Dole - didn't show up here because of a scheduling conflict. But the problems for the party run deeper than just getting Dole to Sacramento.

The most popular political paraphernalia at the state convention was a tiny yellow sticker plastered to blouses, shirts and sport coats everywhere. It read:

President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

"It's the women, stupid." A special 90-minute seminar focused on the issue Saturday.

The reason: Many Republicans here are fearful that another open fight over abortion rights will alienate more women from the party. In the November gubernatorial election, Gray Davis got 61 percent of all women voters, according to an Examiner exit poll.

Analysts said Davis' huge lead among women can be tied to Republican Dan Lungren's anti-abortion views, although Davis also focused on so-called kitchen table issues like education and HMO reform and Lungren ran a scattered, unfocused campaign.

Appealing to "soccer moms'&lt;

"The Republican Party needs to lighten up and liven up," said Julie Leitzell of Larkspur, a partner in Common Sense Activism, a group that tries to get media attention on GOP issues they say appeal to "soccer moms with brains."

"We need to appeal to women on education issues," she said. "Our kids can't spell, they can't add. If the Republican Party can't figure out how to get that issue on the front page with the disaster (in education) that is happening to California, the party is doomed."

Now the GOP faces a bitter and open fight Sunday over removing an anti-abortion section from its party platform. And, to compound the matter for the 2000 presidential race, not a single GOP candidate supports abortion rights, including Dole.

Among high-ranking elected Republican officials in California, only 8 percent are women, compared to 35 percent among Democrats. There are no highly visible Republican women from California, with the exception of Rep. Mary Bono of Palm Springs, who took over for her husband after he died.

"Women are not identifying with the party," said Beth Rogers, president of the Seneca Network, which raises money for women GOP candidates. "We maintain that you can never be a majority party in an era when you have one party that is half men and half women (Democrats), and another party that is all men. Women are sensing this."

Rogers and other Republican women say linking the GOP's failure simply to abortion is too simplistic. Women identify with candidates on all sorts of issues, they said.

Listen, Rogers said, to how most women respond to the abortion issue. It's about civil rights and government control, not whether they would actually choose to have an abortion or not. One example:

"They talk about less government," said Sacramento artist and self-described centrist Democrat Debra Madison, who attended the convention, "but I think to legislate what a woman would do on abortion is creating huge government. . . . It's the one big problem I have with the Republican Party."

But Peggy Mew of Arcadia, who opposes abortion, says for the party to survive, it must include pro-lifers into its

"big tent" philosophy. When it comes down to it, most women aren't focusing on the issue, she said.

"There is a strong faction that is pro-abortion and there is a strong faction that is pro-life," Mew said, "and everybody in between will weigh candidates on other issues."

It's clear that Republicans are having trouble attracting all sorts of diverse groups. Only a few African Americans and Latinos were spotted at the state convention. Some believe reaching women is the first step to regaining control in California.

"Everyone is focusing on the Hispanic, Asian and African American vote," Rogers said. "That's the new market for the party. But we keep saying that Asians, Latin Americans and African Americans come in boys and girls." &lt;